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'The great thing about roadkill is that you are getting meat without the guilt of killing an animal or having one killed on your behalf.

'It's a situation much more in keeping with the spirit of Christmas.'

Mr Boyt will be spending Christmas with his wife, Su, and his 90-year-old mother-in-law, but said they will not be joining him with his dolphin dish.

Some of the components of Arthur Boyt's Christmas dinner. A dophin steak, squirrel legs and a otter shoulder, sit alongside vegetables and his cooking pot

He added: 'My wife is a vegetarian so she doesn't eat the dishes I cook and especially not ones with animals I've collected from the roadsides.

'There will still be a traditional turkey on Christmas Day but I don't like buying and eating meat.

'I feel very strongly about killing animals, so strongly, I can only just about manage a chicken leg at a party or something.

'I would never buy meat and the great thing about roadkill is knowing that the animal hasn't been purposely killed.'

Mr Boyt started eating roadkill aged 13 and loves to dine out ut on fox, rabbit, sparrow, deer, and pigeon.

He says the oddest-tasting food he's ever had is bat and he once had porcupine he brought back from a holiday in Canada.

This is an lump of dolphin meat. The retired biologist has already tucked into the 'delicious' mammal, served alongside the seal, but he plans to keep the rest for Christmas Day lunch

He added: 'What you have for Christmas depends very much on what you find by the road in the week or so beforehand - unless you are like me and keep a good supply of all kinds of roadkill in the freezer.

'Rabbits are always getting killed on the road and they make a very tasty and nutritious meal for at least four people.

'The pheasants that have survived three months of shooting go on getting themselves killed on the roads without a shot being fired.

'But badgers are heavy with fat by now and are out and about as usual until the cold really sets in. The family will be amazed and there will be no tyre mark on the meat.

'If it looks reasonably fresh don't worry about how long it has been dead as in this cold weather they will last for weeks, unless its skin comes off in your hand when you pick it up by the back leg, in which case it may be too strong for any palate but that of the connoisseur.

'Just because it hasn't got a label on doesn't mean it's not edible. I've been doing it all my life and never been ill once.'

But despite taking the dolphin after it died, it could land him in trouble as all dolphins found on British beaches belong to the Crown.

This is an otter shoulder which will go into Mr Boyt's Christmas dinner

These squirrel legs will also be added to the pot of meat harvested from dead animals

And Danny Groves, a spokesman for the Whales & Dolphin Conservation, said eating dolphin found on a beach is a crime.

He explained: 'Whales and dolphins are not public property - they belong to the Crown. If they do get washed up they should be removed by local authority.

'A washed up dolphin or whale could be riddled with disease so anyone eating the animal is putting themselves at serious risk.

'In the UK whales and dolphins (and porpoises) are classed as 'Royal fish'. Essentially when they strand they are the property of the Crown.

'They should not be removed by members of the public. Even if that were not the case, it is a very unwise thing to eat dead whales or dolphins that wash up on the shore.

'They can carry diseases which are transferable to humans, and are usually taken away by local authorities to be buried in landfill.

'Whales and dolphins can also be heavily contaminated. Pilot whales, for example often carry high levels of mercury.

'Long term independent studies of children in the Faroe Islands where the meat is consumed have directly linked neurological delays, cardiovascular problems and other development problems to their mothers pre-natal consumption of the whale meat.

'Anyone who does come across a dead whale or dolphins should contact the UK Strandings Hotline rather than take the carcass home and eat it.'

But a spokesman for Defra said a law may only have been broken if Mr Boyt had transported the dolphin.

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Arthur Boyt tucks into a dead DOLPHIN he found on beach for his Christmas treat